Continue reading »]]> A while back I posted a message about the Windows 7 Release Candidate install appearing to hang whilst expanding windows files.

Well, I just wanted to let you know that this also appear to be happening on Windows 7 RTM / Final.

When the installation reaches the Expanding Windows Files stage at 21% (some people have reported various different percentages but mostly it has been 21%) the install remains here for a significant period of time, appearing to have hung and causing many people to reset their computers. However, my advice to you would be to WAIT as it will continue eventually!

There have been reports that it can hang here for over an hour but does eventually carry on. So don’t give up on Windows 7 RTM yet!

EDIT: Just to add some weight to this post, see the comments on my similar post about the same issue for the RC of Windows 7 here. So don;t give up…..just leave it to get on with it!

Technorati Tags: install, Microsoft, win7, Windows 7, windows 7 rtm

Continue reading »]]> For those of you who have been using Windows 7 RC and are now wanting to upgrade to Windows 7 RTM / Final, you will no doubt be faced with the message that you cannot upgrade from the RC to RTM.

However, the workaround available to upgrade from the Beta to the Release Candidate is still applicable here. 

So here is what you need to do to upgrade from previous versions of Windows 7 to the RTM / Final;

1. Download the ISO for Windows 7.
2. Extract the ISO to your computer.
3. In the extracted directory there will be a “Sources” directory. Open the file cversion.ini in this folder.
4. Change the MinClient value to 7000.0

Now when you run the setup,  you will have the option to Upgrade.

Good luck with your upgrades!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows 7, windows 7 rc, windows 7 rtm

Continue reading »]]> Well, it’s been a long time coming, but it has finally happened…..Microsoft and Yahoo have teamed up in the search and web advertising arena.

After several take-over offers from Microsoft were refused by Yahoo over the last year, the final deal that has now been reached will see Microsoft’s search engine Bing powering Yahoo’s search, with the advertising sales team at Yahoo taking over the same role for Bing’s advertising.

According to the BBC, there are two main factors as to why a deal has now been reached.  Firstly, after the CEO of Yahoo stood down towards the end of last year, Carol Bartz took over the role and she is not clouded by the centiment of keeping search within Yahoo, as was the case with many of the individuals who have been with the company since the glory days.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, Microsoft have finally come up with a search engine that can actually compete with that of Google.

You can read the full article on the BBC here.

Technorati Tags: bing, google, Microsoft, search, yahoo

Continue reading »]]>

Microsoft have gone through the ringer in recent times.  They have had the relative failure of Windows Vista (which I have to say I thought was ok), the rise of the IPhone and other Windows Mobile competitors, the dominance of Google on the search arena and their own Internet Explorer being hit in the browser wars by the three main rivals, Safari, Mozilla and more recently Chrome.

A dying horse?

For a long time it seemed that MS was not putting up much of a fight, however, it seems that Microsoft are on the bounce back at the moment.  This being the case, I thought I would take a look at some of the ways Microsoft could be returning to form, some of them already here and some that are just visible on the horizon;

The big cheese…

Ok, so lets start with the obvious one, Windows 7, because lets face it, this is the biggest deal, at least for Microsoft. It was looking pretty bad after Vista failed to make the grade, but it now seems that Windows 7 is getting a lot of love from many people.  With better performance and stability, an improved UI (not to the taste of everyone I know, but I think it will become well liked) and a general feeling of “this is Vista the way it should have been”, it looks like we might be on the way back to the glory days of Windows (well, a lot better than Vista anyway).  This response seems to go beyond that of just the tech industry as well, with many of my non-geek friends very eager to get the final release of 7 and already happily using the public Release Candidate.  One of the big wins here for MS was the level of public interaction and previewing that has gone on. 

Have you Binged yet?

So, moving on to another area that Microsoft seems to never get anywhere with, web search.

First we had MSN, then came Google, so MSN sort of….well….flunked.  So, along came Windows Live Search…..not a lot better.  Now though, Live Search has become Bing…..and this just might be the one to grab back some market share.  It appears that the folks behind Bing actually thought about what was useful to the user and implemented it, rather than simply re-branding their existing engine.  With features such as web page content preview, improved search results, a streamlined user-interface and better support for video searching / playback, the initial results for Bing look good with it’s usage rates starting to increase.  Now, please do not mis-understand me, I am not saying that there is any way that Bing is a massive threat to Google at the moment, but it is a start.

Browser Wars……

MS has also suffered hits in the web browser wars for years, with release after release of sub-standard browsers when compared with the more standards complient and more secure competitors in the field.  Internet Explorer 6 came in for a huge amount of criticism, with IE7 not performing much better.  However, it seems that just like in the areas of OS and search, Microsoft finally actually listened to what people wanted from the browser.  So with the release of IE8 there appears to be a much more positive mood in the air as it is more standards compliant, which makes it much easier for us web designers / devleopers for create content for and much more secure / stable which makes the whole experience much nicer for everybody else.

IPhone…..You Phone……We all scream for Windows Mobile 7??

Last but not least, this round up would not be complete without mentioning the mammouth impact that has been felt with the arrival of the IPhone, taking the mobile computing and web from the minority to the majority.  Before Apple came along with the IPhone, Microsoft had been able to cruise along comfortably with their Windows Mobile Pocket PC software and then later Windows Mobile 5 / 6, even though all of them left a lot to be desired from an end-user perspective, not least the poor performance. But just like it the rest of it’s fighting grounds, Microsoft has been forced to stand up and listen to what people want from their mobile device.

As an interim answer, we have seen the release of Windows Mobile 6.5, which addresses many usability issues with the touch screen interfaces and significantly improves performance.  However, the release that the guys at MS are hoping will be the real IPhone competitor is due out next year in the form of Windows Mobile 7.  Not a great deal is yet known about this next incarnation of the mobile OS, but recent leaked reports suggest many of the familiar features familiar to IPhone users will be appearing such as accellerometers, mandatory built in GPS and a slick new touch enabled user-interface as you can see from some recently leaked images over at WMPowerUser.com.

Is it enough?

Whether or not the responses to the various challenges will be enough to propel Microsoft back to number 1 in all of the above areas is doubtful, but it certainly is interesting watching them try.  

What are your thoughts?

Technorati Tags: bing, browser wars, ie8, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Windows 7, Windows Mobile

Continue reading »]]> UPDATE: Expression Web 3, Sliverlight 3 and Expression Studio 3 have now been released, which you can read about in my post, “Expression Web 3 Released” here.

I received an email this morning inviting me to an exclusive launch event for Silverlight 3 and Expression 3.

Unfortunately I am out of the country, but the launch event is being held by Microsoft on July 22nd.

In the words of the invite, the event is to “celebrate the UK launch of Silverlight 3 and Expression 3” and will feature a keynote speaker in the form of PP&T General Manager, Ian Ellison-Taylor of Microsoft in Redmond.

So, it looks like we will be seeing the launch Expression 3 and Silverlight 3 on or around July 22nd 2009.

Technorati Tags: expression 3, Microsoft, silverlight 3

Continue reading »]]> UPDATE: The public version of the Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 can be found here.

Today sees the waiting over for many people, myself included, for the release of Beta 1 of Visual Studio 2010.

According to Mike Ormond the beta will be available to MSDN Subscribers today, with a public download following hot on its heels on Wednesday.

Apparently, the beta will run fine on Windows 7 RC1.

If you are an MSDN Subscriber, visit MSDN subscriber downloads here.

Technorati Tags: beta, Microsoft, MSDN, visual studio 2010, vs2010

Continue reading »]]> Many people, myself included were gvery exicited this week as we were expecting the release of Vsiaul Studio 2010 Beta from TechEd, however, now Mary J Foley has posted on her blog stating that she believes that Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 will be released next week.

Although this is nothing concrete, it certainly seems that certain people in the Twitterverse are saying that Jason Zander is saying that they are very close to release and therefore adding some more credence top the claims.

Just hurry up Microsoft!

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, visual studio 2010, vs2010

Continue reading »]]> First, HAPPY NEW YEAR! I know its late and I want to apologise to anybody that reads this blog regularly.  It has been a while since my last post because I have been very busy with my day job, but I am hoping to write more in 2009.

I downloaded the public Windows 7 CTP (community technology preview) last week and now have it dual-booting on my laptop.  I must admin, having downloaded and tried the early previews of Windows Vista I was expecting to find a slow, buggy mess of an operating system with some hints of what was to come.  I am happy to say I was wrong!

I have included some of my thoughts and opinions below, but please do leave a comment regarding your own as I am really interested to hear what you all think.

Windows 7 Install

Microsoft have really done a nice job with the install stage of Windows 7.  They havde taken the improved user interface of the Vista install and streamlined it so that you only have to answer around 6 questions during the whole process.  I was even more surprised when my wireless drivers weere foudn during the install and I was able to connect to the internet and download any available updates.  The whole installation took around 15 minutes from start to finish. No problems at all!

Also, it should be noted that the system requirments for Windows 7 have actually been REDUCED from those needed for Vista.  This is a big deal for Microsoft to do this and it appears that they are finally listening to the thousands of people that screamed about this when Vista was released.

Hardware Detection

With Vista alot of people, myself included, had problems with the compatibility of hardware and availability of drivers.  Again, Microsoft have greatly improved this.  They claim that due to Windows 7 being based upon the Vista OS, that any Vista drivers will work with Windows 7 as well.  Hardware manufacturers have had a good amount of time now to produce these drivers, so these are available for virtually all hardware these days.  I was able to install any drivers that were not automatically detected (of which there were not many) by using the Vista drivers.

Performance

There seems to be a good improvement in performance with Windows 7.  I have found that the startup is quicker than Vista and the time for the OS to wake from sleep or hibernation has greatly improved as well.  Obviously, it remains to be seen what this performance is like once I have been running the OS in anger for a couple of months, but I am hopeful the performance will be a definant improvement over previous releases from MS.

User Interface and Usability Improvements

The task bar has now been changed to allow to you “pin” programs that you regularly use to it, meaning you have quick access to anything you need alot.  The other thing I have found to be really useful are the context menus now available by right clicking on a program on the task bar.  For example, if I right on the IE icon on the task bar, I get a list of my recently visited sites and for media player a list of my most commonly played music.

The side bar has now been removed in Windows 7, which now allows you to place the gadgets anywhere on the desktop.

Verdict

There are loads more things I really like about Windows 7 which I have not mentioned here.  It is a massive improvement over Vista, without introducing any major over arching new functionality.  My take on Windows 7 is that it is “Vista the way it should have always been”, which is a very good thing!

I would definantely recommend that you download the CTP and try it yourself in a virtual machine or on a seperate partition.  The final release is not due for another 12 months, so this means that Microsoft have got a good amount of time to tweak and further improve it.

Please do leave your comments here about your thoughts and experiences of Windows 7, I always love to hear from other people….

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Windows 7 beta

Continue reading »]]> To those of you who already know of WIX (Windows Installer XML), it will be old news. But, for those of you who don’t, I thought I would introduce you to it.

Windows Installer XML was released some time ago to the open source community by Microsoft. It allows for the creation of Windows Installer Packages (i.e. MSI files) from XML files. This means by using the toolset within your build process, you can integrate the creation of custom installer packages into your build easily.

The packages created by WIX can be fairly complex, allowing for custom actions to be embedded within the MSI, including tasks such as installing Windows Services. Also, it should be noted that Microsoft are now using WIX internally themselves, for example, the installer packages for Microsoft Office 2007 were written with WIX.

WIX is currently at version 2.0 and is stable, with WIX 3.0 in development. There has recently been some talk that the project is dead, however, the team behind WIX have definitively stated that this is not the case and the WIX project is very much alive. I have been using WIX within my role at Experian to automate the build and deployment of our software, with great sucess. I have written a generator app that utilitzes the toolset to generate all the MSI files for our software and then packages them all up into one wrapper application for deployment.

Anyway, I would seriously recommend having a look at WIX. I have included a couple of links below to get you started;

WIX on SourceForge – This, as the name suggests, is the home of the WIX project on SourceForge. This contains links to the latest binaries, news and mailing lists for users and WIX project developers.

WIX Tutorial – An excellent introduction to using WIX with lots of examples and instructions to help you wade through the toolset (I think this tutorial is up to date for version 2.0 but I may be wrong).

Introduction to WIX – A short article introducing WIX and some basic concepts and usage. This is an old article from 2004, but may still be useful reading for the new users out there.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, WIX